by his readiness to assist
a proscribed offender to escape--compared with the honour of Sylvia
Armytage? And she, why had she done this for him? Could it be possible
that she cared, that she was concerned so much for his life as to
immolate her honour to deliver him from peril? The event would seem to
prove it. Yet the overmastering joy that at any other time, and in
any other circumstances, such a revelation must have procured him, was
stifled now by his agonised concern for the injustice to which she had
submitted herself.

And then, as he stood there, a suffering, bewildered man, came
Carruthers to grasp his hand and in terms of warm friendship to express
satisfaction at his acquittal.

"Sooner than have such a price as that paid--" he said bitterly, and
with a shrug left his sentence unfinished.

O'Moy came stalking past him, pale-faced, with eyes that looked neither
to right nor left.

"O'Moy!" he cried.

Sir Terence checked, and stood stiffly as if to attention, his handsome
blue eyes blazing into the captain's own. Thus a moment. Then:

"We will talk of this again, you and I," he said grimly, and passed
on and out with clanking step, leaving Tremayne to reflect that the
appearances certainly justified Sir Terence's resentment.

"My God, Carruthers! What must he think of me?" he ejaculated.

"If you ask me, I think that he has suspected this from the very
beginning. Only that could account for the hostility of his attitude
towards you, for the persistence with which he has sought either to
convict or wring the truth from you."

Tremayne looked askance at the major. In such a tangle as this it was
impossible to keep the attention fixed upon any single thread.

"His mind must be disabused at once," he answered. "I must go to him."

O'Moy had already vanished.

There were one or two others would have checked the adjutant's
departure, but he had heeded none. In the quadrangle he nodded curtly to
Colonel Grant, who would have detained him. But he passed on and went to
shut himself up in his study with his mental anguish that was compounded
of so many and so diverse emotions. He needed above all things to be
alone and to think, if thought were possible to a mind so distraught
as his own. There were now so many things to be faced, considered, and
dealt with. First and foremost--and this was perhaps the product of
inevitable reaction--was the consideration of his own duplicity, his
villainous betrayal of t